I am "doing" the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time in August 2011. I have set up this blog to save having to speak to my mother every day to let her know how my mental health is.

Thursday, 25 August 2011

Day Twenty-One: God bless the mother

After last night's bedding fiasco, I awoke in a similar mood to which I went to bed in. My sister and the kids had returned from Italy and were staying at my flat. I skyped them to cheer myself up and to make sure that no one had shitted on my new carpet before I'd had the chance to walk on it. Cath and the kids looked and sounded great and Tilly was asking when I was coming to her house to play. Eva asked me to tell her a story and I told her the story of the night I was telling jokes on stage and no one was laughing until I told her joke about the banana - she was chuffed that her material stormed where mine had failed.

Mum arrived this afternoon by train and I met her at the station. It started raining as soon as the train pulled in. We sat and had coffee for an hour as I whined to her about what's been happening and what to do next with it. She was pretty good, told me to hold-fire on the decision making and crack on.

We walked to a gig I was booked in to help run and MC for a share of the bucket. Once again, I skived with the flyering by standing against a wall smoking fags. The dude running the gig wanted me to flyer for an hour beforehand, it seemed like a long time to have to skive. Anyway, we had a full room with a young crowd, five acts including me as MC. I happened upon a good looking couple with, it seemed perfect lives. I came back to them throughout the gig pretending to be more and more envious of them. The audience went for it.

Mum started speaking to the headliner, who I'm not particularly keen on. She said to him that she wanted to see his show and he offered us complimentary tickets and to meet us outside his venue. I didn't want to go and was rather keen on seeing Ed Byrne of Carphone Warehouse fame. We opted for Ed Byrne but went for a steak beforehand. Mum had the same conversation with the waiter about how she wanted her steak cook. "I don't want any blood." The waiter, just like the other thousand, explained that past medium, there is no blood. He managed to negotiate her down from a well-done to a medium-well. We'll get her down to medium-rare one of these days.

Ed Byrne was Ed Byrne. He's been around for a long long time and survived the "comedy is the new rock 'n' roll" era the first time around in the nineties. He had some good stuff about pet cats. I should write reviews, shouldn't I? Ed Byrne, stuff about cats.

Into a taxi and on to Gagstro. We opted for flyering the corner again after last night's success. Mum helped. She had her own corner just like Bodie in the Wire. Like Marlo's people over Barkdale's people, we've taken over the corner from a man that looks like Hagrid (I'm ashamed to know what Hagrid is) and I bet he opens with that, "Hagrid: the post Harry Potter years." Hilarious.

Tagline: Moooooother, you don't have to put on the red light.

Gagstro was packed to the rafters. Our guest is very dark (his humour, he's not swarthy). He went in the middle and I followed him. I really hate following him and have struggled in the past. This is because either people love him and they want more of the same or they hate him and he's put them off comedy for life (maybe not life but probably the evening). He's talking about murdering prostitutes after anally raping them and then I come on with a sort of "hey, that guy huh? Am I right? Ladies? Is this thing on?"

So yes, I struggled. I started bantering with an American in a Beatles cap at the front. I asked him who his favourite Beatle was and he said Ringo, we all had a laugh about it and I came back to referring to it for the rest of my set. A woman shouted from the back that she hated Ringo because he slagged off Liverpool. "Look what you've done!" I shouted at the American. We all laughed and I looked like a clever dick.

The bucket was healthy with that many people and I earned enough today for four packets of fags.

I bought Mum a crepe on the way home, lemon and sugar FYI - she's such a 50s child.

As far as bedding-gate goes, I sent a passive aggressive tweet to all my flat mates asking if they knew where my bedding had gone. I got a text message from the culprit apologising and grassing up her guests. Tonight, one of the guests apologised profusely in such a charming way that I had forgotten about the whole thing. I still have no duvet cover on this spider web-esque material quilt but it's ok. I will wash and launder my original one tomorrow and all will be well.

I have just four nights in this bloody place and then I can forget that I ever knew it. Like Men In Black without dancing aliens. Much the pity.